Category Archives: Europe

Exploring Stromboli

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The pier at Scari is a good 6 feet above the water line. It has a lot of traffic from small passenger ferries coming and going with loads of tourists. We pulled up to a staircase, hopped out, then tied Kosmopolitan up so that she was floating under the pier, out of the way of all the ferries. The weather had cleared up nicely. The sun was out and it had turned into a beautiful afternoon.

Our first goal of the day was to find lunch. We walked along the main drag and only found one open restaurant that served real food (as opposed to snack foods). We went inside and found out that in between lunch and dinner, they only serve snack food, as well. We resigned ourselves to snack food and ordered something called arancini that Tai told us was a sticky rice ball with meat in the middle that are pretty good. What came out was a sticky rice ball with a sort of stew meat and veggies in the center, but it had been deep fried hours earlier and reheated in the microwave. It was greasy as all get out and pretty darn gross. Tai assured us that this is not how they normally are.

Once we had a little food in our tummies, the next goal was to find a tour company to take us to the volcano. We were hoping to do a sunset hike. All the tourist information places in the tiny downtown were closed for the afternoon break. We decided to take a stroll along the waterfront to look for banks and tour companies. The shoreline along the waterfront is all black sand. It looks more like an asphalt parking lot waiting for the lines to be painted than a beach. We noticed there were no cars on the road, just golf carts and tuk tuks (tiny three wheeled vehicles). Even the taxis are golf carts. The road is barely wide enough for one car. Almost all the buildings are white, and most have blue trim. It actually reminds us a lot of a small Santorini, except without churches with domed blue roofs. It looks to be mostly hotels and a few private residences. There are a lot of flowering plants in people’s gardens, which adds to the loveliness of the setting

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After walking for a while, the road narrowed. We assumed it was a pedestrian only path because there was no way a car could possibly fit on this little narrow lane. But we were wrong. The little golf carts buzzed up and down the tiny lane, with only inches of clearance on each side. There wasn’t enough room for Continue reading →

Welcome to Stromboli Island, Aeolian Islands, Sicily, Italy

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We found out that while we were in Palermo, we had missed a festival in Trapani. There were apparently fire eaters, which impressed Bill. Oh well.

Yesterday we did the usual get ready to go routine, including a trip to the grocery store. The day before, when we were in the first market in Palermo, Christi had said at least 5 times that we should stock up on fruit here, where there were zillion of produce vendors selling every type of produce imaginable. Most of it looked lovely. But we didn’t. So, we stood in a grocery store, staring at a small selection of nasty looking fruit. The apples and bananas looked edible, so we got some of those. Every grocery store we have been to outside of the US there is a person whose job it is to weigh the produce and print a little sticker with the total before you get in line to check out. This grocery store has a self use scale and sticker printer machine. The directions are, of course, in Italian. Tai and Christi couldn’t figure out how to use it. Mind you, Tai is involved in producing cutting edge software, and the scale baffled him. So, we gave up on the grocery store and drove around town in search of a street fruit vendor. This was a blessing in disguise. The street vendor’s fruit was beautiful and a fraction of the price of the shriveled up fruit in the grocery store.

Anyway, once we had taken out the trash, stocked up on food, stowed away the things that like to go flying at sea, and checked the weather one last time to make sure conditions still looked good, and we were ready to go. We said our goodbyes to Bill and Ellen and pulled out. At first, the sea conditions were rocky and rough, which was odd given that the wind speed was low. We figured the waves are leftovers from yesterday’s storm. At one point, Tai was standing outside the pilot house with the pilot house door open. Eric shut the pilot house door, telling Tai he didn’t want to chance a wave coming over the side and getting the pilot house wet. No more than three minutes later, a big wave came over the side and drenched Tai. Tai looked rather surprised and said “I guess I should have clued in when you shut the door”.

As the day wore on, the seas got Continue reading →

Welcome to Palermo, Sicily, Italy

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We were supposed to meet our friend, Tai, in Palermo today with Kosmos. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with our plans. It was windy and choppy on the seas. So, we rented a car, instead. We drove up to Cinisi to pick Tai up from his hotel. Cinisi is a small town near the Palermo airport, about 31 kilometers west of from the city of Palermo.

Outside the town of Trapani, the landscape is exactly what you imagine Italy to be. Gently rolling hills with acre upon acre of farmland, empty windy roads, and a farmhouse dotting the landscape here and there. It looks like a sports car ad. It is beautiful. Here there are more vineyards and less fruit orchards. There also seems to be a bigger variety of produce grown than on the other side of the island.

Cinisi is a seaside community, and even has its own little marina. The town is adorable and quaint. We found Tai and headed on to Palermo. We had no real plan for sightseeing, and we weren’t really sure where to go. We followed signs that said “city center”. When we got to where the buildings looked really old, we parked. We had no clue whatsoever where we were. We immediately saw that we had stumbled across one of the three open air markets in the city’s old center. This market was basically vendors selling assorted items from folding tables a long a series of narrow streets. There was a lot of produce, cheese, fish and meats, which made for an interesting combination of smells that Tai commented “is not always pleasant”. There were also a lot of low end miscellaneous items you’d find at a 99 cents store. It was hard to get a good look at the buildings behind the vendors, but they looked pretty run down from what we could tell. We made our way through the market and continued on, finding the train station. Ah ha! A land marker! We now knew where we were, but, unfortunately, not where we had left the car.

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We decided to head to the center of the historic district, Quattro Canti (four corners). We followed a main road northwest. What is interesting is Continue reading →

Food and Fellow Nordhavn Friends in Trapani

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We spent this morning doing chores. Eric washed the exterior. Much to his dismay, he found that the fine red Tunisian sand/clay/dust does not come off without serious scrubbing. The boat washing was a much bigger job than anticipated.

Christi decided to it was time to do a serious spring cleaning. We have a guest coming tomorrow, so she was feeling inspired. She deep cleaned all the carpets and upholstery on board.

When we finished the tasks at hand, we rode into the historic section of town for lunch. We went to a place that Lonely Plant said is frequented by a lot of mafia types. We ordered one fish carpaccio (raw fish) appetizer. We have ordered many a carpaccio before in our lives. It has always come out as very thin, ready to eat slices that look nothing like the fish it once was. But, apparently, they do it differently in Trapani. Out came a raw fish cut in thirds. Yes, the main skeleton in the center had been removed for us, but the head, skin, scales and smaller bones were all there. The waiter set the plate on the table and the fish stared at us, obviously angry about having to die for our culinary pleasure. We found out that it is much harder to get fish meat off the skin when the meat is not cooked (especially when using a butter knife), and also that scales have a magic ability to get into everything. We wrestled with the fish over the meat, and we are sad to say that the fish won. After several rounds over many long minutes, both of us gave up the fight, deciding that getting the meat away from the bones, skin and scales was just too darn hard.

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In America, Continue reading →

Passage to Trapani, Sicily, Italy

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By yesterday the storm had passed. Skies were clear and brilliantly blue, and while it was warmer than the previous two days, it was by no means hot. We languidly got ready to go to sea and headed out around 2:00 pm.

The passage was pretty uneventful. Winds varied from 11 -17 knots apparent, always on the nose (which makes real wind speed more like 5 11 knots). The seas were the typical Mediterranean small, sharp swells at rapid intervals. Not the smoothest ride of all time, but certainly not a bad ride, either.

We arrived in Trapani around noon today. From the distance, it looks like a series of blocky mid-rise apartment buildings on a flat of land. A large hill rises in the distance, and the hill is mostly barren, both in terms of construction and foliage. The hill is basically a big mass of brown, much like the hills of southern California at the end of the summer. From the distance, the harbor area looked to be primarily industrial, and the farther into the harbor we ventured, the more industrial it became.

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We called in and were told they had space in the marina. The marina is Continue reading →